Goodbye Jason Michaels

The end of the Michaels - Dellucci platoon. 

Of course, I'd like to see Ben Francisco get off to a good start and provide the kind of spark that Asdrubal Cabrera did last year.

This is an overall good move, but they still need to get more offense.  In the off season, I never thought that the Tribe would need to look for a second baseman, but here it is early May, and that is an issue.

Delucci has been hitting better lately. I think Francisco will start out playing primarily against left handed pitching. Not b/c he can't hit righties, b/c of Delucci. Francisco will aslo be used to give Gut days off.

I hope he (and Gut) develops into an everyday LF/RF who can replace Delucci b/c I think he has more upside.

It will be interesting to see what they do when Shin Soo Choo is healthy in a couple of weeks especially if Delucci is still hitting. Choo is out of options.

I really think that 2nd base is fine with Asdrubal Cabrera.  Look at our line-up compared to other teams that are producing, or even past Indians teams.  We need outfield bats.  The outfiled is a position, similar to first base, where you can maybe sacrifice a bit of defense for some power. (ie former players such as albert belle, Manny Ramirez, ellis burke, etc.)  We're talking about middle infield here. positions that up until the break through of players like a-rod, jeter, and tejada were never thought of as positions that would hit higher than 7th in a line-up.

We already have a bat in the middle infield with jhonny p, lets keep the jury out on druby cabrera.  Let him to continue to spark the team by flashing leather and occasionally providing clutch hitting.  Taking a chance on francisco is great, but if this doesnt work we might need to think about pulling the trigger on a trade before we get to far out of contention. I realize its stil early and the division is wide open, but we have put ourselves in a HUGE hole in the wild card.

At this point the Tribe should try different things to get out of their horrible hitting slump.

Agreed.

Most of the team is in a slump, and that definitely points to the batting coach.  If they won't fire him, then change around the coaching and put Skinner in as the hitting instructor.  If not Skinner, there must be someone else in the Indians organization, AAA, AA - a change alone would likely do some good.

If there weren't so many players in a slump, I'd say stick with Asdrubal Cabrera.  But we can't let everyone work their way out, there are just too many.  Changes need to be made, and putting Josh Barfield in is a good option.